Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Q:
We all hit writers’ block at some point in time. What do you do to
get out of it and move the story forward?

A: I do exercises.

Partly that means
physical exercise—get myself up and away from my computer, go for a
swim at the beach or snowboarding at one of the local ski hills,
weather depending. I live in a rural area that's great for outdoor
activity.

But at my desk (to
which I eventually return, usually religiously each morning), it
means writing exercises. Some good ones are:

CHARACTER INTERVIEWS
– You can either use a character interview template someone else
has devised, or you can be the interviewer and the interviewee, just
hammer out some dialogue that helps you get to know one of your
characters. I love writing dialogue, so this always gets my fingers
flying. Without the pressure to write material that might one day be
published, I can poke and prod and learn interesting things that will
almost certainly flesh out the character being grilled when I return
to the “actual” story.

STORY SOFTWARE
DOWNLOADS – I'm a junkie for trial versions of novel writing
software. Usually I play with a trial for a couple of days, and
that's enough to get my juices flowing to get me back on track with
my work in progress. But if I fall in love, I buy the full version of
the software. Two that I like a lot are StoryWeaver (which is great
at the idea stage) and Novel Factory (brilliant for organizing). Last
month, Novel Factory helped me take a jumbled mess of a first draft
and organize it into acts and scenes that (I'm hoping) tell a
complete story. I still have to go write many of those acts and
scenes, and there are big plot gaps I'll have to work out as I go,
but now when I show up at my desk in the morning, I have a series of
tasks that I've already pre-defined for myself. Much easier than the
jumbled mess or the blank page.

SETTING EXPLORATION
– AKA, Google Maps. I like to wander the streets in the city where
my characters are, turn left and right and see what's there. Just
this week, I walked Manhattan's East 86th Street through
my POV character's eyes, and it helped answer a plot question that
had been nagging at me, stopping the forward motion.

And when I'm truly
blocked and I can't come up with an exercise on my own, I pull one of
my dog-eared writing craft books down from the shelf beside my desk.
I find Donald Maass books particularly full of goodies that I can use
to improve a scene or fine tune a plot twist or deepen the setting.

It almost doesn't
matter what you're doing with your work in progress. As long
as you're working with it, in a focused, thoughtful way, any
hours you spend will be hours well-spent.

Monday, June 29, 2015

Q: We all hit writers’ block at some point in
time. What do you do to get out of it and move the story forward?

- Susan

I’ve become much less
candid about admitting to those moments (days? weeks?) when I seem to bang up
against the same wall instead of moving forward. It seems to be fashionable for
writing teachers and some well-known writers to scoff and say something along
the lines of “Pfffahhh…whining about writers’ block is dishonest. If you are
stuck, either bulldoze your way through it like a man/woman, or admit you’re
lazy and weak.” Or something like that, usually delivered with a swelling chest
and a curled lip. Some of these people are doubtless wonderful to their pets,
and sell millions of books.

There’s another contingent
that is more practical, represented by a quote attributed to William Faulkner
insisting that inspiration is a silly concept, or, as he supposedly said, “I
only write when I’m inspired, but fortunately I’m inspired every day at nine
o’clock.”

In other words, just sit down and start, and treat it like the job it
is. Fair enough. The resulting prose may be so bad that you are driven to the
gin bottle earlier and earlier every day, but at least you have put words on
paper.

Then there are writers
like Douglas Adams, dear to my heart, who wrote, “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they
make as they fly by.”

Lots of famous writers suffered from writers block, giants like Virginia Woolf and Gustave Flaubert, and they came out all right, or at least their masterpieces did.

What do I do when my
fingers either stall over the keys or plunk slower and slower as I see a brick
wall rising inexorably on the page? Jump up, fly to the kitchen, and eat
chocolate. Tell myself there’s no such thing as writers’ block, promise myself
it won’t hurt at all to go back upstairs and delete the 2,500 truly stupid
words that I wrote over the last two days, eat more chocolate, kick the cat.
(No, no, of course I don’t do the latter.)

I have no easy, sure
answers for myself or other writers. Writing is hard work, leavened by moments
of excitement or grace, but also fraught with messy, confounding challenges and
periods of pure slog. Maybe my fellow Minds are wiser than I and I’ll learn
some new coping methods this week. But there is one thing I know for sure: You
must, must finish the book, even if
you’re privately convinced it’s dreck. Nothing is as inspiring as writing “The
end” in the first draft and knowing you now have the scaffold on which to build
a really good book.

Friday, June 26, 2015

This week's question is a timely one for me: "Sometimes you become so interested in the
research for your book that it takes over the story. What do you do to
keep it from becoming a treatise that only serves to make your readers’
eyes close with boredom?"

In the last two weeks, I've been gathering information on Edgar Allan Poe's first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, which has been called the rarest book in American literature. Only 12 copies of the 40-page pamphlet—self-published "By A Bostonian"—are known to exist, and the last time a copy went up for sale, it fetched $662,500 at a Sotheby's auction, the highest price ever paid for a piece of American literature. (Fun backstory: When the 12th copy was discovered, back in 1988, it was found at an antique store in New Hampshire; a customer bought it for $15, and that one auctioned later that year for $250,000—a nice return on investment.)

Just Google any of the keywords above, and you'll find tons of information, of course—but what I've been interested in is a different bit of history: One of the 12 is missing, stolen from the University of Virginia's Alderman Library back in the early 1970s and never recovered.

Here's a glimpse at the research I've done on this—and a thank you to the folks who've helped me:

Tracking down the original AP coverage, thanks to a librarian at George Mason University, since the library's database for AP articles doesn't go back that far

Gathering information from U.Va. thanks to a media relations representative who's gone above and beyond the call of duty in answering emails (and who very graciously said he enjoyed my story "The Odds Are Against Us" and invited me to get together with him if I came to Charlottesville)

Getting information on security issues from such old journals as The American Archivist and Georgia Archive and from the the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries—and still trying to track down an old copy of Library Journal from 1974 with an inventory of everything that was stolen

Searching for the 1988 Sotheby's catalogue which detailed the history and condition of the Tamerlane that sold then and also provided information on other copies of pamphlet (I can buy the Sotheby's catalogue for $60, but I haven't gone there yet)

And, of course, reading the full contents of Tamerlane itself—including various versions of the title poem (and from elsewhere in the Poe canon: "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "William Wilson" and a little bit of "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-tale Heart" and....)

How much of all this is going to make it into the story I'm working on? So far, I've got about a two-page scene where two characters talk about the fact that there's a missing manuscript and what happened to it.Overkill maybe on the research... and yet...And yet: Rather than just providing detailed backstory for me to fold into a conversation, all that reading and research has sparked my imagination toward the plot of my own story and seems to be helping to shape what happens. Part of this may seem obvious, of course: If I'm fictionalizing a story around a true-life event, then I have to be faithful in some ways to what actually happened. (I feel strongly about this, but others do not; consider, for example, some of the novels built around the Gardner Museum heist in Boston.) But it's more than that too. My story isn't just adhering to the details of what happened, but it's being shaped by possibilities spinning off of those "what ifs" from the brainstorming that goes hand-in-hand with dense research.I'm hopeful that at least part of that process might work.Beyond that, I'll simply agree with many of the comments that my colleagues here have mentioned already this week. The way we writers incorporate research into our stories should never bore or burden, and a little goes a long ways.

On the Road with Del & Louise

In another direction, just a quick bit of news. My forthcoming debut book, On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, to be published September 15 by Henery Press, is now up for pre-order at many places, including at my own local independent bookstore, One More Page Books and More in Arlington, VA, which will be hosting my book launch on Saturday, September 19. Click any of the links below to pre-order—or if you want to save your money, you can first try to win an advance copy through my Goodreads giveaway, running now through Sunday at midnight.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Sometimes you become so interested in the research for your book that it takes over the story. What do you do to keep it from becoming a treatise that only serves to make your readers’ eyes close with boredom?

Some people, old roommates mostly, call me lazy. I prefer the term efficient. I don’t like waste, be it energy, food, money, brainpower, or time (especially food).

I know a lot of writers enjoy spelunking in the proverbial stacks, unearthing long-forgotten historical tomes. Their jaws drop in wonder at a newly-discovered journal from the 1300’s or a never-before-seen map of the ancient Roman empire.

I’m not one of them. I strive to do exactly as much research as necessary and not one iota more. I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of including too much research in any of my books or stories. Ever. Really, EVER.

Readers don’t need to know how the sausage is made. They just need to know that one of my characters has stopped at a street vendor to get a delicious brat on a bun.

Don’t get me wrong, I work hard to make sure that what I write is as accurate as possible and, in order to do that, research must be conducted. It’s just not my favorite thing. That’s why I rarely worry about bombarding my readers with all kinds of arcane knowledge. I try to give them just what they need to understand whatever is going on in my book.

I operate on a simple plan: if it serves the story, it goes in.

If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

*****

Still a few more days left in Amazon’s The Big Deal sale! More than 350 Kindle books for up to 85% off, including RUNNING FROM THE PAST for only $1.99!

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

We all have
certain topics that fascinate us. For me, it’s whether or not King Richard III
really killed the princes in the Tower. Working these topics into our books can
be great, if it’s done correctly. If it’s not, however, it becomes nothing more
than an information dump. How do you know if you’ve crossed the line into this
dreaded territory? Well, it can be hard to recognize on your own – after all,
it’s your baby.But a good rule of thumb
is to ask yourself if you’d like to hear all of this information at once at a
dinner party.

Think of it; you
are sitting quietly when the person to your right begins to Talk. And Talk. And
Talk. Do your palms begin to itch? Does your gaze wander? Are you beginning to
squirm? The sensation is not unlike being cornered by that certain relative –
you know the one – who insists on telling you every detail about her life.

In real time.

It usually goes
something like this:

“So last Saturday,
Bob and I decided to try out the coq au vin that everyone is raving
about from that new restaurant – you know the one – that cute little bistro on
Main Street. It used to be that horrible Italian place that served that awful
lasagna. The owner was that big sweaty man with the limp. He probably wouldn’t
have such a terrible limp or sweat so much if he bothered to lose a few pounds.
Judy said he drank, and I think she’s right. There’s simply no other excuse for
that lasagna.

“Anyway, so Bob
and I had a 12.30 reservation. At the bistro, not the Italian place. We left
the house at 12.15 – no wait, that’s not right. It was more like 12.10, now
that I think about it. You know how terrible traffic is this time of year. Why,
last week it took me nearly an hour to drive to the hairdressers. Can you
believe it? An hour! Judy said she once was stuck in traffic for thirty minutes
trying to get to the bank. They really need to put a better traffic light in
downtown, but I think the real problem is all the tourists. They love nothing
more than to drive around, sightsee, and cause problems.

“Anyway, so we got
to the restaurant at 12.20 and guess what? Our table wasn’t even ready! But who
do you think I saw? Mary Fisher! You remember her, don’t you? She had that
terrible accident a few years back and now has to drink all of her food, poor
thing.”

Of course, by now
you’ve intentionally split your glass of wine down your shirt to give yourself
an excuse to run away rather than hear how poor Mary Fisher drank her coq au
vin.

Were it only so
easy when reading a book.

Do not dump your
favorite topic over your readers’ heads all at once like football players do to
their coaches with those huge barrels of Gatorade. If you are lecturing the
reader, they will get annoyed. If they are happily reading a cozy mystery set
in an ancient Irish castle and suddenly find themselves reading several jam-packed
pages outlying the subtle differences between the mating rituals of the African
Forrest Elephant and the African Bush Elephant – neither of which live in
Ireland – they will write bad things about you on Amazon.

Your readers want
entertainment, not a lesson. If you cannot bear to delete all the delightful
facts you’ve acquired on the mating habits of those elephants, then put them up
on your website. But don’t make your reader have to sit through the lecture if
they didn’t sign up for the class.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Sometimes you become so interested in the research for your book that it takes over the story. What do you do to keep it from becoming a treatise that only serves to make your readers’ eyes close with boredom?

Even though I write fiction it is important that the story be credible. So I, like most of my fellow fiction authors, want to ensure that anything that occurs in real life is reflected as accurately as possible, like police procedures, actual places, methods of killing, characters’ accents and so on and so forth.

You can’t have the Lincoln Memorial standing next to the Eiffel Tower or a Texan speaking with a Russian accent, unless of course, you are wanting to make a statement. Readers will pick up on these errors and judge your book accordingly.

I remember one French writer, who will go unnamed, who situated one of their books in Canada. Unfortunately they didn’t do their research and placed the national headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Gatineau, Quebec and not across the river in Ottawa where it is actually located. Needless to say this didn’t endear the writer to Canadian readers.

To avoid a similar mistake, I check out anything I’m not completely sure about. But I will admit occasionally it runs away with me, particularly when I’m delving into a topic that really captures my interest. When it does, I want to include as much information as I can in my story. I figure if it intrigues me, it will intrigue my readers too.

Unh-unh. It doesn’t work that way. Usually I will realize this as I am going through the revisions, because too much information stops the forward action of the story. But if not, my critiquers will red pen it or my editors will tell me to tone it down.

The challenge is to come up with the right balance: enough information to give your story credibility and depth yet doesn’t put your readers to sleep.

Using different methods to convey this information also helps to keep your readers awake. It doesn’t need to be written in long ponderous paragraphs, but can be revealed through your characters’ actions and dialogue.

Have you ever noticed how TV shows convey needed information? Rather than one character recounting the entire information in one long boring speech, several will provide parts of it as if they were carrying on a conversation. It helps to maintain the pace of the show.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Sometimes you become so interested in the research for your book that it takes over the story. What do you do to keep it from becoming a treatise that only serves to make your readers’ eyes close with boredom?

by Meredith Cole

It's easy to get distracted when you're writing. Sometimes, instead of actually fixing a plot point that doesn't work at all, you can find yourself distracted by research. You dig deep to find out everything there is to know about a certain gun or traffic patterns in the city where your book is set. The next thing you know, you have enough for a non-fiction book on the topic and you've completely neglected your fiction altogether.

So how do you show your reader that you know your stuff without boring them completely? I think the secret is in the details you sprinkle throughout your story. If the details that are relevant to your story ring true, your reader will be right there with you. But if you're heavy handed with the details and interrupt the story to explain something for pages and pages (just to show them that you know your stuff) you'll lose them. Eventually, too, you have to leave the research behind and take a leap into the unknown and enter the world you've created.

Right now I'm grappling with the question of how much research is enough and how much is too much with my current book. It's set in 1951 in a small town. I've been surprised by how much 1951 was similar to the way we live today (cars, refrigerators, telephones, television...). But the difference really is in the details. The prices of things. The language. The options for women. I've done far more research on bank security and details on life in the 1950's than will ever make it to the final pages. But hopefully when you read it, it will feel right to you and the story will suck you in. And then I can feel like I've done my job.

Friday, June 19, 2015

Those in the writing know often suggest that writers prepare character profiles for each of their major characters. If you follow this approach, what do you tend to highlight? And if not, how do you keep track of your characters as the story progresses?
Before I respond to the question, from the Official Department of BSP:

This blog post was done a couple days ago, ready to be scheduled. So I’m happy I waited on that since I have to add something additional to it: Macavity Award finalists were announced yesterday. I’m thrilled and honored that my short story, “Howling at the Moon,” from Ellery Queen, is one of the nominees in the short story category. And honored to be in the company of Craig Faustus Buck, Barb Goffman, Travis Richardson and our own Art Taylor. Yea, Art! But the good news doesn’t stop there, fellow Criminal Mind Catriona McPherson’s novel “A Deadly Measure of Brimstone” is nominated in the Best Historical Novel category and she’s also nominated in the Best Mystery Novel category for “The Day She Died”. Yea, Catriona!

I want to thank Janet Rudolph and everyone who voted. I hope you’ll all read all the nominated stories and books. I believe most of the short stories are online. Here’s a link to the Anthony Award short story nominees, of which four, Art, Craig, Barb and I are also nominated. So if you scroll down to the short story awards, there will be links to our four stories that are also Macavity finalists: http://bouchercon2015.org/anthony-awards/ And you can find Travis’ story in ThugLit issue #13.

* * *

And now to the question at hand:

Mostly I just try to keep it in my head these days. So, of course, my head is about ready to explode.

When I first started writing, I often made a character profile chart. It had all the usual stuff, background, eye color, favorite foods, cars, etc. And I would diligently fill it out. But these days I really do keep most of it in my head. I might make a few notes about the various characters, either in a computer file or on a piece of paper, but I don’t fill out any forms anymore.

By the time I sit down to write, I’ve usually been thinking about the characters and major plot points in my head for some time. And since many of my characters are, at least in part (composites), based on people I know or know of, it’s sort of easy to keep it together. The problem is when you’re working on more than one thing at a time they can all run together.

The main concern with characters is to be consistent. What’s important is to keep track of what you’ve actually said in a work or series so the characters remain true to themselves/consistent. On a very simplistic level if a character likes chocolate at the beginning and hates it at the end, people will be taken out of the moment, out of the “reality” of your story. Unless that’s your character arc, how and why he comes to hate chocolate by the end.

Remember, too, that you don’t have to use every bit of background in your character profile. It’s good for the writer to know all these things, because these traits will make the character act or react in various situations. But maybe it’s not necessary for the reader to know everything – just enough to buy any actions on the part of the character.

That said, when I occasionally teach a writing seminar or class, I do tell the students about character profiles and even hand one out. I think it’s a good thing for people who are starting out because it does make you think about these things.

Another good tool is Proust’s Questionnaire. Change ‘you’ in the questions to your character’s name and it will really get you thinking about who your character is.

Proust’s Questionnaire:
1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
2. What is your greatest fear?
3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
5. Which living person do you most admire?
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
7. What is your current state of mind?
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
9. On what occasion do you lie?
10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
11. Which living person do you most despise?
12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
16. When and where were you happiest?
17. Which talent would you most like to have?
18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
21. Where would you most like to live?
22. What is your most treasured possession?
23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
24. What is your favorite occupation?
25. What is your most marked characteristic?
26. What do you most value in your friends?
27. Who are your favorite writers?
28. Who is your hero of fiction?
29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
30. Who are your heroes in real life?
31. What are your favorite names?
32. What is it that you most dislike?
33. What is your greatest regret?
34. How would you like to die?
35. What is your motto?

Some of these questions hit on a deeper level than what’s your character’s favorite food which, no doubt, you can find on Facebook, as they post one pic after another of their daily cuisine.

For those who are interested, there are many variations of character profile forms online. Just search “character profile”.

There are more things one can ask about their character or put in their character’s “profile”, but I think this is a good start.

***

More great news:

My story “Ghosts of Bunker Hill” was just picked up by Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Not sure when it will be published yet. Set on today’s Bunker Hill in Los Angeles, not that other one back East. But the ghosts of Chandler, Fante and Cain are there in force.

And my noir mystery-thriller novella, Vortex, will be out soon. Advance Reader Copies are available if anyone’s interested. Hardcopy. E-version, stone tablets, hieroglyphics, Cuneiform, written on sand, any format. Choose your poison. Contact me at Paul@PaulDMarks.com if you’re interested.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

I'm not a massive fan of character bibles. You know how the book you haven't written yet is perfect and wonderful? And then you get cracking and it gets worse and worse and more and more hopeless until there's nothing for it but to finish it and move on to the next one that's still perfect(ly unwritten)?

Basically every decision you make while you write is slamming closed a door on all the possibilities you didn't choose and so for me a character bible would mean starting the book with quite lot of doors already slammed. Where's the fun in that?

There are still some things about Dandy Gilver I don't know after ten books. In fact, more than not knowing, there are things I'm determined not to find out, because I want to be able to decide when the right moment comes.

And that brings me to my Donald Rumsfeld system of what you do and don't need to know about characters.

I never understood why people gave him a hard time about the (un)known (un)knowns. It struck me as perfectly sensible. Here's how it works for character development.

1. Known knowns. You need to decide pretty early on what your character's name, age, race, gender etc are (unless . . . see 2)

2. Known unknowns. The things you know you don't know and so you don't talk about them. Perhaps very deliberately. For example, the protagonist of Rebecca is nameless. And perhaps because you want to leave breathing room for later developments. Like me with Dandy Gilver.

3. Unknown knowns. These are the things about your character that you get without being able to define. For instance, Shakespeare wrote the gloriously neurotic character Hamlet a hundred and fifty years before neurosis was named. I think you need access to the output of a character but you don't necessarily need to be able to pin it down.

4. Unknown unknowns. These are bad. These are really not good. The technical term for them is . . . mistakes. The things you don't know you don't know about your character will make them do and say things they'd never do or say.

The most common example of an unknown unknown is when you try to write a character who comes from somewhere you don't. Unless you get it checked out, you're on a shoogly peg. (A shoogly peg is Scottish for thin ice.) You're fine as long as the book is read by other people who don't know but Blimey O'Reilly it clangs when someone who does know gets eyes on it. (Blimey O'Reilly is British for Boy Howdy.)

This is right at the front of my mind just now because I've written a Japanese character (in Scotland, speaking English) in COME TO HARM and although I bugged Japanese friends endlessly, asking questions, I'm waiting to hear what I got wrong. So that's known unknown unknowns, I suppose. Suspected ones, anyway.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

This week's question:
Those in the writing know often suggest that writers prepare
character profiles for each of their major characters. If you follow
this approach, what do you tend to highlight? And if not, how do you
keep track of your characters as the story progresses?

When I first started writing the Clare
series, I was a bit of a keener. I was new to writing and I wanted to
do everything right. (That's how green I was—I still thought there
must be a formula for how to write right.)

I used my Outlook email software to
create a contact profile for each character—major or minor—who
appeared in Dead Politician Society.
I kept track of their age, date of birth, vehicle model, physical
appearance, education level, socioeconomic background—basically,
any detail I dropped into the story, plus any more details that felt
relevant to their character composition even if those details never
saw print (like the fact that Clare's a Capricorn, which I never
mention, but it helps me shape her personality and know what time of
year her age changes).

I
continued this tracking through Death Plays Poker,
and while I don't remember if I ever had to consult the electronic
index cards, it was comforting to know that as the series progressed,
I could grow the cast in my head without worrying about being tripped
up by a lapse in memory.

Then
tragedy struck. I had been using a free trial of a shiny new version
of Microsoft Office. When the trial expired, I decided I
was quite happy to stick with the old version I'd bought a few
years earlier (rather than spend the $600 they wanted for the new
version). But lo and behold, I'd been tricked. By saying yes to the
trial, I had inadvertently agreed to delete the previous version. I
could either pay the $600 or have no software at all. My emails and
help tickets to customer service were ignored, and I could not find a
phone number to reach a Microsoft employee in person. So I switched
to Apache Open Office, a free software that's compatible with MS
Office and several other programs. I could access all my Word files,
and I could still use Track Changes and read comments from my editor
who uses Word, but my email contacts were lost.

I
contemplated rebuilding my intricate web of character notes. But by
that time, I was writing my third book, and I was much more relaxed
about my writing process. (I had learned that as far as writing goes,
there really are no rules of right and wrong.) A few times, I wished
I still had that info. For example, I couldn't remember if I'd made
Clare 5'4” or 5'6” (the height I am vs. the height I wish I
was!). So I trawled through a couple of scenes in previous novels
where I thought I might have made reference to her height. After a
careful scan, I couldn't find a specific height, so I felt
comfortable making the choice for the first time. (I think I went
with 5'4”, though I'd have to check to be sure!)

Right
now I'm working on a standalone thriller, and Scrivener is my
software of choice. I'm not as worried about forgetting a character's
height or vehicle make, since I'm only working with this cast for the
duration of one novel, but I do have index cards within the software
where I jot down their backstory, their growth arc (if they're a
major character), their role in the story's progression and outcome,
and their feelings about the other characters in the story. I
sometimes interview characters, ask them to describe their first kiss
or their most embarrassing high school memory, etc. Those details go
into their file too. This way, if I'm stuck in a scene and not sure where
to go with it, I can refer to a character's file and draw inspiration
from the whole of who they are.

If I
return to the Clare series or start a new one down the road, I
probably will set up files for characters again. But I also might
not. We'll see!

P.S. Apologies in advance that I won't be around to reply to comments until Sunday. My husband and I are headed up north fishing, and we're told the Internet and cell service at the lodge will be spotty at best. I'm looking forward to being off the grid.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Here's a confession: I'm addicted to the "likes" on my status updates.

My wife makes fun of me for this. "How many likes do you have on that status update now?" she'll ask. "Have you checked in the last three minutes? What are you up to now?" But she's guilty of it too. On those occasions where we've both shared the same bit of news or the same photograph, it becomes like a contest. And then beyond the "likes" themselves comes a different contest: "Well, at least I got more comments than you did."

And now that my publisher, Henery Press, has asked me to create a Facebook author page in addition to my personal one... well, that's a whole nother level of neediness and anxiety, right? (I won't invite you to like my new page, since that invitation is clearly implicit here. But I will say I'm giving away an ARC of On the Road with Del & Louise on the page this weekend, so... click, click, clickety-click even if you don't like, like, likety-like!)

Will any of those status updates—or even that ARC giveaway—ultimately, directly, lead to a sale of my book? Who knows? And—frankly—who cares?

By this I'm not saying I don't want people to buy my book when it comes out. I do! And you should! (Yes, you!) But what I don't want is to feel like I'm consistently crafting status updates with an eye toward some marketing, toward some bottom line—because I think that's a mistake.

And I don't think that's at odds with the "like" addiction that I mentioned.

In conjunction with my job at George Mason University, I've overseen social media marketing for the Fall for the Book festival for many years. As part of a small team, we've looked at our FB audience's demographics and the days and times they're most likely to be browsing pages. We've scheduled posts at specific intervals and with a specific range of subjects (general literary news vs. a recent review of one of our authors vs. an update about one of our events). We've crafted FB ads and paid to boost specific posts, often to carefully crafted target audiences (people ages 18-35 within a 30-mile radius who like Neil Gaiman, for example). And there's two things I can tell you:

I've never seen any proof that someone has read one of those date,
time, place of author event updates and then gone to the event itself
specifically because of that update.

No matter how much crafting or boosting we've done, people are more likely to "like" a photo of a couch made out of books than an update about the date, time, and place of the next author event on our schedule. Always.

So does that mean that Fall for the Book should slow down the attention it's giving to social media? Not a whit. Because what we are doing is connecting with people and then reconnecting with people and maybe giving them a little something to smile about or a chance to reaffirm the plans they already had go to an event they heard about elsewhere or just a link to a review of their favorite writer's new book—and in the process to build Fall for the Book as not just a resource but even a friend of sorts, the kind who shares some of your tastes, some of your interests, likes a lot of the same things you do, and wants to talk about them.

There's those words again: "like" and "share" and "connect" and—yes—"friend."

Bluntly stated: Those folks—and we all know them—who view social media first and foremost as a marketing tool are doing it wrong. The person who posts only about his new book and where you can buy it. The person who friends you and then immediately asks you to like her author page. Even worse, the person who friends you and then immediately posts on your wall a message about his latest project or author page or buy link.

That's not friendship, is it?

I'm not friends in real life with all of the people I'm friends with on Facebook. Some of them I haven't even met and may never meet. But I do feel a connection with many of them. I've laughed with many of them, and my heart has gone out to many of them, and I've been delighted to find that some of us share the same enthusiasm for hot dogs or Taco Bell or a rare bourbon or that we grew up reading Danny Dunn or that, just today, we're so many of us fans of Ornette Coleman and maybe listening to his music in our separate far-flung offices and apartments and whatever.

Maybe some of those folks will buy my book when it comes out. Maybe not. But in either case, that seems secondary to the connections here—as it should be.

I have no idea if any of it really works for selling books. I suspect that all the exposure helps, at least indirectly, if for no other reason than getting some people to remember my name is a good thing. If they ever see it again (say, on a book cover), they may be ever-so-slightly more inclined to investigate further.

That’s okay with me, too, because I’m not trying to generate sales directly. I’m in this for the long haul, so I see my interactions on social media as just that—social. I try to be entertaining and humorous. I try to be interesting. I try not to always talk about my books. Sure, I mention them from time-to-time. After all, many of my friends, followers, and all-around homies are interested in my books and writing career.

Bottom-line, I engage in social media not for the bottom-line. I engage in order to entertain, to stay connected, to interact with my fellow readers and writers, and to participate in the larger book-loving community.

And, boy, has that community has shown me a lot of love. When I participated in the Kindle Scout program (for RUNNING FROM THE PAST), my social networks stepped up big-time. The amount of support I got for that campaign was overwhelming, and I know for a fact that it contributed mightily to the book’s success. (And for that, I’m grateful.)

Of course, let’s be real. My number one purpose for social media?

Posting pictures of food (this is my Killer Tofu, in the, uh, flesh).

*****

And speaking of Goodreads, I’m giving away a signed trade paperback of my horror novel, THE TASTE (actually, I’m giving away two copies). Go here, enter, and good luck!

Q&A with Criminal Minds!

Question of the Week

Each week the crime fiction authors of Criminal Minds respond to a question about writing, reading, murder and mayhem.Question of the Week:

As a writer, what do you make of readers who flip to the end and see what happens last first?

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Mondays with Susan

Susan C. Shea debuts a new series, a French village mystery, Love & Death in Burgundy in spring 2017 (St. Martin's Minotaur). The third in her Dani O'Rourke series came out in Feb. 2016. She lives in Marin County, CA.

Mondays with Terry

Terry Shames writes the Macavity Award-winning Samuel Craddock series, set in small-town Texas. In 2015 BookPeople dubbed her one of the top five Texas mystery authors.

Tuesdays with RM

RM Greenaway has worked in nightclubs, darkrooms, and courthouses. She writes the B.C. BLUES crime series, featuring RCMP detectives Leith and Dion. Her first novel COLD GIRL, winner of the 2014 Arthur Ellis Unhanged award, will be released 26 March 2016.

Tuesdays with R.J.

R.J. Harlick is the author of the acclaimed Meg Harris mystery series set in the wilds of Quebec. Her love for Canada’s untamed wilds is the inspiration for her series. The 4th book, Arctic Blue Death, was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel.

Wednesdays with Cathy

Cathy Ace writes the globe-trotting Cait Morgan Mysteries, (Bony Blithe winner 2015 - Agatha’s Canadian cousin), and the WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries, set in her native Wales. She lives in rural British Columbia.

Wednesdays with Dietrich

Dietrich Kalteis is the award-winning author of Ride the Lightning, The Deadbeat Club, Triggerfish and House of Blazes. His newly completed novels, Zero Avenue and Poughkeepsie Shuffle are slated for release in 2017 through his publisher ECW Press. Nearly fifty of his short stories have been published internationally, and his screenplay Between Jobs is a past-finalist in the Los Angeles Screenplay Festival. He lives with his family in West Vancouver, British Columbia and is currently working on his next novel.

Thursdays with Catriona

Catriona McPherson is the Anthony, Agatha, Macavity, IndieFab and Lefty winning author of the DANDY GILVER series set in Scotland in the 1920s, as well as two darker stand-alones AS SHE LEFT IT and THE DAY SHE DIED. Catriona lives in northern California with a black cat and a scientist.

Thursdays with Jim

James W. Ziskin (Jim to his friends) is the author of the Edgar-, Anthony-, Barry-, Lefty-, and Macavity-nominated Ellie Stone Mysteries. He's 6'2", weighs 200 pounds, and writes like a girl.

Fridays with Paul

Paul D. Marks pulled a gun on the LAPD...and lived to tell about. A former "script doctor," Paul's novel WHITE HEAT is a 2013 SHAMUS AWARD WINNER. Publishers Weekly calls WHITE HEAT a "taut crime yarn." Paul is also the author of over thirty published short stories in a variety of genres, including several award winners. GHOSTS OF BUNKER HILL, from the 12/16 Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, was voted #1 in the 2016 Ellery Queen Readers Poll.

Fridays with Danny

Danny Gardner's work has appeared in Beat to a Pulp, Out of the Gutter, and Literary Orphans Journal. His first novel, A NEGRO AND AN OFAY, will be released May 2017 by Down And Out Books. His short fiction will be featured in JUST TO WATCH HIM DIE, a Johnny Cash inspired anthology, published by Gutter Books in Winter 2016.